Appropriating Technology: The Whole Earth Catalog and...

Appropriating Technology The Whole Earth Catalog and CountercultureEnvironmental Politics

Andrew Kirk

Environmental History Vol 6 No 3 (Jul 2001) pp 374-394

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Appropriating Technology The Whole Earth Catalog and Counterculture

Environmental Politics

Andrew Kirk

We are as gods and might as well get good at it -Stewart Brand The Whole Earth Catalog 1968

When Stewart Brand issued his clarion call for technological acceptance in the opening lines of the first Whole Earth Catalog the American enviro~ime~ital move-ment was in the middle of significant ideological and political reorientation Until the mid-1960s most environmental advocacy aimed at preseniing American wilderness from industrial development and urban encroachment Enlironmental activists from John Muir to ~ o w a r d ~ a h n i s e r focused the environmental debate on the problems of illdustrial technology and constructed a sharp dichotomy bebveen nahire and human civilization In this ideological tradition wilderness became the ultiluate symbol of environmental purity and abundance ~vith the polluted modern technological city its antithesis This bipolar often antiniodernist frarneivork senred conser- -vation and preservation activists well in early fights to convince the American public of the reality of scarcity and the necessib for presenation of some forestlands and remote natdral treasures This simple didhotom) was less effective when applied to increasingly coniplex environmental and social politics after the mid-1960s

Followi~ig the 1964 passage of the Wilderness Act environmental activism was enmeshed in the social struggles political upheaval and cultural te~lsio~is of the 1960s A new generation of counterculture environmentalists struggled to resolve long-standing tensions between the modernist faith in Progressive reform and the antirrlodernist distrust of tech~~ology and desire to return to a simpler time The success of the wilderness nioveme~lt created an ideological crisis for environmentalists who found it increasingly difficult to define their movement in terms of progress s presenation The spirit of cooperation that united a diverse coalition of environmental advocates behind the banner ofwilderness disintegrated in the years after the passage ofthe Wilderness Act and environmental politics became increasingly corn- plicated and the boundaries of the debate harder to define Almost immediately after the successful passage of the Wilderness Act wilder~iess ceased to be a defining

Appropriating Technology 375

environmental issue As the 1960s progressed Anlericans increasingly focused less on presening a pristine nature and more on preserving the whole environment

The tensions between modernist desires for a technological fix and antimodernist dreams of a wilderness utopia allvays simmering below the surface of wilderness politics came bubbling to the surface again in the mid-1960s A new generation of co~~nterc~il tureenvironmentalists invigorated by New Left politics attempted to move beyond the progress vs preservation debate and redefine the parameters of the environmental movement Counterculture environmental politics embraced the seemingly contradicton notioil that the a~ltirnodernist desire to return to a simpler

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tinle hen humans rvere more closely tied to nature could be achieved through technological progress Couiiterculture environmentalism simultaneously encom- passed both anti~nodernsi~n and modernism No-here is this apparent contradiction more visible than in the pages of the Whole Earth Catalog (nac)ivhere primitive ~ ~ o o d supplies for counterculture neo-Luddites share the page stoves and sun~ivalist Lvith personal computers geodesic domes and oscilloscopes~ Inside the covers of Iralt the seemingly neat bipolar ivorld of hventieth-centun en-ironmental politics becomes a messy inelange of apparentl incongruous philosophies and goals

Prior to the rise of the counterculture e~lvironi~le~italists hventieth-century envi- ror~rnental politics only appearedto be neatly bipolar In fact the jarring juxtaposi- tions 011 the pages of IFC only highlighted old and deep tensions in Lmerican environmental politics Hen Thoreau vas a pencil designer and entrepreneur John Muir began his adult life as an inventor locally renolvn for his mechanical genius and Aldo Leopold -as a scientific forester A11 of them struggled to reconcile their modernist epistemoloa and technological enthusiasm Lvith their antimodern desire to restore purity to nature Enviro~linental historians are lvell aware of these struggles but tend to do~vilplay the co~nplex relationship behveen technological enthusiasm and enviro~ime~italad~rocacy stressing instead the ways these and other environ~nentalis~ tra~lsceilded materialisin and technocracy and offered alternative visions for Ameri- can society

Historical actors in the drama of tvei~tieth-centun environmental advocacv are often rated on a sliding scale according to the purihr of their wilderness vision using this system most environmental historians have ranked Thoreau Muir and Leopold high on the scale for their early and seemingly complete con-ersio~ls to the uilder- ness ethic Like fundamentalists environmentalists and environmental historians love their prodigal soils-if 1-ou never saw that fierce green fire you might as rvell go home Those who fail to make the full conersion are generally left out ofthe canon Anlbivalent conservationists vho questioned the ~vilderness trope are ignored or ranked low on the scale of significant environmental figures The Lvilderness purity test tends to aim analysis of environme~ltalis~n toward the areas where environme~ltal politics appear black and white and the actors in the drama are easier to pigeonhole Il~is overenthusiasrn for wilderness prodigals is counterproductive and helps foster a misleading sense of ideological purity in environmental politics that is not supported by the historical record Historian William Cronons trouble wid1 vilderness stems from his beliefthat by venerating a injthically pure wilderness Lve cede ground in the rest of the environn~e~lt to purity in wilder- Lvhere most of us li1ej Giving ness philosophy similarl~ causes problems for environinental histoq It makes it too

376 Environmental History

easy to paint American perceptions of technology and the environment in black and white when shades ofgray often prevail-as ifyou have to choose between wilderness or civilization The bipolar division of the environment into pure wilderness and impure eventhing else has deeply compromised enviro~lrne~ltalism and sometimes skews environmental history A look at w ~ c a n d the counterculture political milieu from which it grew can provide a ~rrelcome corrective to the wilderness trope in environmental histon

To understand post-1960 environrnentalisrn ei~rlironmental historians niust turn away from John Muir and Aldo Leopold and look Inore closely at E F Schurnacher Anlory Lovins Murray Bookchin Stewart Brand and the generation of en Tironme~l-

talists who struggled to craft an environmental philosophy that recognized that hu- inaris were as gods and might as well get good at it

Whole Earths Counterculture Roots

Popular representations of counterculture envirorimentalists often include stereo- typical back-to-nature communes complete with bearded wilderness advocates and naked children draped in flowers living off edible plants It was not uncommon for younger environmentalists inspired by a renewed interest in the life and writings of Thoreau Muir and an emerging group of countercultural eilvironmental prophets such as Gary Snyder to drop out and take to the ~voods During the 1960s and 1970s many counterculture environmentalists did in fact reject the modern world oflarge- scale technological syste~ns in favor of a simpler more primitive and environmentally conscious lifc~tyle~

At the samc time other counterc~ilture environmentalists moved in an entirely different direction Influenced by New Left politics this faction critically reevalu- ated lo~igstandin~ assumptions about the relationship between nature technolog and society In particular these environmentalists replaced the wilderness focus that do~ninated 1960s environme~italisni with a more encoinpassisig ecological sensibil- ity that embraced new technologies In the late 1960s and 197os technologically rninded counterculture e~ivironmentalists helped reshape the American environmental rr-tovement infusing it with a youthf~il energy and providing it with a new sense of purpose and direction These new co~~nterculturc environmentalists embraced alter-r~ati~etechnologies as a solution to contemporary concerns about poll~ition over- pop~~lationand the realization that America was entering a new phase in its development

This new phase was envisioned as a post-scarcity economy wherc advanced industrial socicties theoretically possessed the means to provide abundance and freedom and reconcile nature and technolog if only they choose to do so Led by Xew Left social theorists such as Herbert Marcuse and Murray Bookchin post-scarcity adherents shared the beliefthat the poison is its own an t id~ te ~ In other words technolo used a~iiorally and unecologically created the social and environmental problems of inclustrial capitalism Technology used morally and ecologically could create a re~olutio~-tthat illspired a utopian future The Neal Left critics emphasized that social and environ~ne~ltal problerlis in America stemmed not from a lack of


resources but from a misguided waste of the technology of abundance) If these critics argued the American people could be convinced to abandon their bourgeois quest for consumer goods then valuable resources could be redirected toward estab- lishing social equity and ecological harmony instead of consumerism and waste In the late i96os post-scarcity assumptiolis fueled a brief period of technology-based utopian optimis~n that profoundly influenced a generation of environmentalists

This thoughtful reevaluation of the role of technology in American society and politics is perhaps the most significant and lasting contribution of the counterculture to American culture and a critical step in the evolution in envirorimentalism The move away from antimodernism manifested itself in many ways from Buckminster Fuller designing affordable and environmentally sympathetic geodesic domes to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak developing personal computers to put the potver of information in the hands of individual^^ Working toward si~nilar goals other counterculture environ~nentalists and svmpathetic scientists and engineers focused on alter- - -native energy earth-friendly design recycling and creative waste management as the best ways to subvert the large industrial structures they viewed as no st damaging to the environment and to attempt to equalize the ~vorld power structure Whether they were building personal computers in their garage or designing cornposting toilets the idea that technology could be directed toward shaping a brighter future became a driving force in environmental advocacy after 1970

The utopian optimism and revolutionarq political program of the New Left failed to become a part of the mainstream environmental movement Consumed with the reactive fight against the Vietnam War and university bureaucracies the predominantly campus-based New Left movement fragmented and disintegrated in the early 1970s But renelved scarcity in the 1970s helped confirm the urgency of environnien- tal concerns while tempering utopian ambitions that were based on post-scarcity The politicized counterculture environmental movement sumived the New Left and reillailled active in a multifaceted attempt to construct an alternative societ)

The relationship between the counterculture techno log)^ and the environment is complex It would be a mistake to assume that all of those who considered themselves counterculturalists and enviro~lmentalists thought or acted alike Even among those who advocated the use of technology to solve environmental problems a clear pro- grain of action or thought was rare Often countercultural environnientalists seemed to occupy separate but parallel universes defined by [vhether they considered technology to be the problenl or the solution The relationship behveen the counterculture and technoloe was always one of fundamental ambivalence Counterculture e~lvironmentalists never constructed a unified philosopliy that united like-minded individuals and organizations under one banner They were a dilrerse group with a wide variety of perspectives ofteii pursuing opposed or mutually exclusive projects What differentiated counterculture environmentalists from other environmental activists in the 1960s and 1970s was a shared desire to use environmental research new technologies ecological thinking and environmental advocacy to shape a social revolution based on alternative lifestyles and communities alternatives that lvould enable future generations to live in harmony with each other and the enironment

Counterculture environmeiltalists were not the first A~liericans to debate technol- o a and the environment The technology debate began in the Industrial Revolutio~i


of the nineteenth century While some Americans looked at advances in science and technology with a wary eye many Americans viewed technology as beneficial and benign This was particularly true for a generation of middle-class Progressive conservation advocates who believed that rational planning expert management and science were the keys to a sound environmental future From amateur conservation advocacy groups to the utilitarian US Forest Service of Gifford Pinchot A~nerican consenlation advocates looked to science for solutions to waste and wanton destruction of scarce natural resources For most of the twentieth century most resource conservation advocacy stemmed from the notion that through science and the rnarch of progress humans could tame and control all elements of the natural world stopping waste and maximizing productivit This thinking inspired massive reclamation a ~ i dirrigation projects and experiments with che~nicals to rid the world of unwanted pests and predators The steadfast faith in technology and the scientific worldview prevailed into the 196osl

In the decades following World War 11 attitudes toward technology began to change W i l e never quite a mainstream trend more A~nericans questioned the -dominant view of technology and progress A catalyst for this reevaluation was horrifying devastation caused by use of the atomic bomb in Japan Once the patriotic fervor of the war subsided conservationists and intellectuals started discussing what it now meant that humans had the power to destroy the world Books like John Hersefs Hiroshima published i111946 graphically depicted the awesome destructive pobver of atomic weapons and inspired a growing segment to recognize the far-reaching enviro111uental i~nplications of modern technology After years of turning out pro-war propaganda films Holl~wood along with a legion of science fiction writers in the 1950s produced a steady stream of books and films presenting horrifying visions of technology run amok h generation of A~nerica~ls born after World War I1 gren up watching giant nuclear ants or other such mutants oftechnology destroying humanit) i11 movies such as Gordon Douglass Tl~ern(19jq) By the mid-i96os a grolving segment of American socieb particularly young Americans eviriced ambivalence about technoloa During the q o s a sense ofgenuine terror over the evil potential ofscience ~vithout a social conscience grev12 At the same time older members of the conservation movement also found themselves increasingly alienated from the norld of rnodern atomic science massive reclamation projects and postwar consumer technoloa They were distressed particularly by the consequences of technocratic thinking for A~nerican socieb and culture

Within the co~isenlation movement a growing ambivalence toward tech~lology turned into full-fledged tech~lophobia for man Fear shaped much of the consema- tionist alienation from the poshvar m~orld fear that the prornine~ice of the hard scie~lcesthe expa~lsion of the space race and the explosion of consumer technology de-emphasized contact with the nonhuman world The consequences of nuclear technology for Alnerican society led conservationists such as John Eastlick to wonder ifAmericans had been bl i~~ded by the fearful brightness of the atomic bo~nb and were now stumbling through life with little awareness of the enviroilniental and social degradation that surrounded thern13

Despite discomfort with the modern world most conservationists used modernist means to express and act up011 their antiinodernist revulsion Even as their alienation

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from postwar technocracy grew their Progressive-style faith in government agencies a ~ i d protective federal laws continued to be staples4 For most of its history the conservation movement embraced organizational principles and actions based on the idea of linear progress through Progressive enlightenment At the same time it viewed the history of the twentieth century as a steady decline toward chaos and environmental collapse brought on by rampant population growth and unregulated technological expansion Although these two ideals seemed to be diametrically opposed and irreconcilable both shared the same roots as direct responses to concerns about the relationship betueen nature and technology in post-industrial America By drawing on both traditions sometimes consciously and sometimes not posh-ar conservationists and critics of technology attempted to reconcile dreams for reform with competing fears that the system was beyond repair They vere simultaneously hopeful and afraid

Other critics of postwar societv including a contingent of more radical environ- niental presenationists and prominent European and American intellectuals were less incli~ied to search for con~promise and Inore ~villing to propose far-reaching structural changes The most stunning of these critiques came from biologist Rachel Carson whose explosive Silent Spring published in 1962 explained in frightening detail the ecological consequences of humanitys attempt to control and regulate the enliro~inientCarson became the first of many to warn of an impending environ- -mental crisis During the i96os a series of influential books appeared lvarning of a11 apocalyptic future if the present course was not altered Carsons fellow biologist Barry Commoner several bestsellers including Tlie Closing Circle warn-ing of the dangers of sacrifici~ig the health of the planet for temporary material gain

Three other writers also provided inspiration for a new generation of Americans who questioned the role of technology in causing social economic and environmental i~ijustice Jacques Ellul author of The Technological Sociep asserted that all embracing technological systems had swallowed up the capitalistic and socialistic economies and were the greatest threat to freedom in the rnodern ~ o r l d ~ Ellul argued that there was something abominable in the modern artifice itself The system ivas so corrupt that only a truly revolutionary reorientation could stop social and enviro~ime~ital Mandecay9 Herbert Marcuse in his popular One Din~ensional described a vast and repressive world technological structure that overshadowed national borders and traditional political ideologies Marcuse popularized the in- sights of the Frankfurt school of Marxian philosophers and so~iologists~~ Together Marcuse and Ellul provided a critical intellectual framework for Americans looking to construct alter~iatives to the scientific worldview

The most influential of the structural critics of the technological society was Lewis Murnford Munlford began his career as a public intellectual as a strong proporlent of science and technology His 1934 classic Technics and Civilization influenced a generation a ~ i d strengthened the popular belief that technology was moving human civilization toward a new golden age= Like most Progressive thinkers of the industrial period Mumford envisioned a modern world where technology helped correct the chaos of nature and brought balance to ecology In TechnicsMumford extolled the virtues of the ~nachine and painted a positive picture of how technology could reshape the world to eliminate drudgery and usher in an unprecedented period in


histon where machines and nature worked together for human benefit But this prophet ofthe machine age rethought his views in the 1960s Like Marcuse and Ellul Mumford became increasingly alarmed about the power of large technological systems As Mumford looked around at the world of the 1960s and 1970s he worried that the ascendance of the megamachine boded ill for human ~ocie$~ The ma-chine once the symbol of progress toward a more balanced world emerged as a metaphor for describing a seemingly out-of-control capitalist system+

The preoccupation with technology and its consequences became one of the central features of 1960s social and environmental movements and of the counterculture in particular In 1968 Theodore Roszak released his influential study of the youtll movement The Making ofa Corli~ter Culture The counterculture was a direct reaction to technocracy which Roszak defined as a society in which those who govern justik themsel~res bjr appeal to technical experts who in turn justifc the~nselves by appeals to scientific forms of k n o ~ l e d g e ~ T h e counterculture radicals of the s96os he argued were the only group in America capable of divorcing themselves from the stranglehold of 1950s technology and its insidious centralizing tendencies Roszaks position on technocracy mirrored Ellul and Marcuse For Roszak the most appealing characteristic of the counterculture was its rejection of technolog) and the systems it spawned Charles Reich in his bestseller The Greening of Anlerjca (s970) also highlighted the youth movements rejection of technolog as a fiindamental component ofthe counterculture ideologv For both Reich and Roszak - bureaucratic organization and complexit) made the technocracy evil From the perspective of Roszak Reich and much of the younger generation the problem ~r i th America stemmed from that realization that there vas nothing small nothing simple nothing remaining on a human scale

This bigness and bureaucratization concerned British economist E F Schumacher ~vhose popular book Small Is Bearltifi~l(i973) became a model for decentralized humanistic economics as if people mattered Of all the structural critiques of technological sjstems Schurnachers provided the best rnodel for constructive action and was particularly influential in shaping counterculture e~lvironmentalism Unlike more pessin~istic critics of the modern technocracv Schumacher assured that by striving to regain indij~idual control of economics and environments our landscapes [could] become healthy and beautiful again and our people regain the d i g n i ~ of man ~ v h o knovs hi~llself as higher than the animal but never forgets that noblesse obligehe key to Schurnachers vision was an enlightened adaptation of technoloa I11 Snlall Is Beautih~l Schu~nacher highlighted what he called intermediate technologies those technical advances that stand halfway behigee11 traditional and modern technology as the solution to the dissonance beheen nature and technolo - - in the modern vorldiO These could be as simple as using modern materials to construct better windmills or Inore efficient portable water turbines for developing nations The key to intennediate technologies was to apply advances in science to specific local con~n~unit ies and ecosystems Schurnachers ideas were quickly embraced and expanded upon by a wide range of individuals and organizations often ~vith ~ i l d l y different agendas rho came together under the banner of a loosely defined ideology that became known as appropriate technolog (7)


Appropriate technology emerged as a popular cause at a conference on technological needs for lesser-developed nations in England in 19683 For individuals and organizations concerned with the plight of developing nations Schumachers ideas about intermediate technologies provided a possible solution for promoting a more equitable distribution of wealth while avoiding the inherent environmental and social problems of industrialization3Appropriate technology quickly became a catch- all for a wide spectru~n of activities involving research into older technologies that had been lost after the Industrial Revolution and the developme~it of new high- and low-tech small-scale innovations The most striking thing about appropriate technol- 0 0 according to historian Samuel P Hays was not the mechanical devices themselves as the kinds of knowledge and management they implied Alternative technology represented a move away from the Progressive faith in expertise and professionalization and toward an environmental philosophy predicated on self- education and individual experienceAlternative technolog) also represented a viable alternative to wilderness-based environmental advocacy

The ATmovement was also bolstered by the New Left Particularly influential were the writings of eco-anarchist Murray Bookchin Bookchin provided a critical political framework by situating the quest for alternative technologies rvithin the framework of revolutionary New Left politics In books such as Our Syr~thetic Environment (1962) and Post-Scarci4Anarchisrn (1971) he argued that highly industrialized nations possessed the potential to create a utopian ecological society with neLv ecotechnologies and ecocommunities~+ From this perspective the notion of scarcity a defining fear of the consemation movement Lvas a ruse perpetuated by hierar- chical society to keep the niaiority froin understanding the revolutionary potentialities of advanced technolom More than most New Left critics Bookchin

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also clearly linked revolutioiiary politics with environmentalism and techno lo^ Whether now or in the future he wrote human relationships wit11 nature are always mediated by science technoloa and knovledge35 By explicitly fusing radical politics and ecoloa the New Left provided a model for a distinctly counterculture environnjentalisn~ From the perspective of the New Left pollution and enviro~lmentaldestruction were not only a matter of avoidable waste but a symptom of a corrupt econon~ic system that consistently stripped both the environment and the average citizen of rights and resources3

Although the utopian program of Bookchin and the New Left ultimately failed to capture the hearts of most environme~ltalists it did help establish a permanent relationship for many between environmental and social politics This linking of the social political and environmental in the 1970s paved the way for new trends of the 1980s such as the environmental justice movement For inner-city African Americans and others who felt alienated from the predominantly white middle-class environ- ~llentalgroups such as the Sierra Club or the Wilderness Socieb the New Left vision of environmental politics provided inspiratio11 Bj connecting ecological thinking with urban social issues and radical politics the New Left introduced environme~ital- ism to a new and nlore diverse group of urban Americans who had felt little connection to the wilderness and recreation-based advocacy of the conservationlpreservatio~l movernent3


At the same time the New Left helped bolster the growing technological fascina- tion of many counterculture environmentalists The 4T niovement represented a different direction for radical politics in the late 1960s By then the campus-based New Left movement was primarily a movement against the Vietnam War Nem Left politics on the campus focused on striking back at the Pentagon IB~I ~TampTand other representatives of the technocratic power structure Escalating ~iolence renewed scarcity fears and a host of pressures inside and outside the campus-based movement caused the Nen Left to fracture and ultimately collapse Disillusio~~ed bj the failure of the revolution ~nany cou~itercultr~ralistsmoved away from radical politics At the same time proponents of appropriate technolog in Europe and America n t r e tak- ing New Left-inspired politics in some different and unco~iventional directions S t e ~ x tBrand a forrner member of Ken Keseys Mern Pranksters and organizations such as the New Alchemy Iilstitute worked to create an alternative sociei from the ground up by adapting science and technolog for the people By the early- 1970s the neo-Luddites in the 14nierican environmental moveme~lt had

ceded ground to a growing number of appropriate technologists This new group of counterculture radicals environmentalists scie~ltists and social activists recognized the liberating power of decentralized individualistic technoloa The ir movernent as varied and diffuse nit11 much disagreement even among its adherents about how to define their ideoloa The term meant different things to different groups but they generally agreed that an appropriate technolog had the folloing features lon~ investment cost per work-place low capital investment per unit of output organizational simplicity high adaptability to a particular social or cultural enironment spar- ing use ofnatural resources low cost of final product or high poteiltial for emplo)me1it3~ Ail appropriate technoloa vas cheap simple and ecologically safe The proponents of appropriate technology also agreed on the basic idea that alternative technologies could create Illore self-sufficient lifes$les and nev social structures based on derno- cratic control of innovati011 and communitarian anarchism For supporters ofappropri- ate technoloo the most radical actio~l against the status quo nas not throwing b o ~ ~ l b s or staging sit-ins but fabricating wind generators to unplug from the grid

The move toward appropriate t e c l i n o l o ~ represented a significant break for the counterculture and the environmental movement A new breed of young env iron-mentalists built oil the ideas of Schumacher Bookchin Marcuse and others to craft a iTel-J different political agenda from their technophobic predecessors in the environmental movenient This new agenda found its best expression i11 the pages of a new publication The M71ole Earth Catalog vas run by young radicals rho ranted to fight fire with fire they wanted to resist technocracy and frightening nuclear and militan technology by placing the pobver of small-scale easil understood appropriate technology in the hands of anyone willing to listen

A Counterculture Sears Catalog

No single institution or organization better represents the technological universe through which counterculhire environmentalists defined themselves than the Whole Earth Catalogarid its successor CoEvol~~tior~ This eclectic and iconoclastic Q~larterb


publication became a nexus of radical environ~nerltalisrn appropriate technology research alternative lifestyle information and communitarian anarchism First published in 1968as the AT movement burst onto the world scene 1VECbrought a a ide range of divergent counterculture trends under one roof Commune members computer designers and hackers psychedelic drug engineers and environmentalists were but a few of those who could find something of interest in the pages of WEC The publications founder Stewart Brand set out to create a survival manual for citizens of planet Earth and hippie environmentalist spacemen3~ According to Brand ctxcwas a movable education for his counterculture friends who were reconsider- ing the structure of modern life and building their own communes in the back- woods Under his direction Whole Earth and its successors extolled the virtues of steam-powered bicycles windmills solar collectors and wood stoves alongside new perso~lal computers satellite telephones and the latest telecommunicatioils hard- ware Brand and his follovers kvere convinced that access to innovative and poten- tially subversive inforrnatio~l and e l lerg technologies as a vital part of changing the cul t~~ralperceptions that contributed to environmental decay1deg

Brands creation perfectly captured the post-Vietnam cou~lterculture movement of the mid-19~0s lvith its emphasis on lifestyle and pragmatic activism over utopian idealism and politics EC marketed real products not just ideas and the focus $gtas ala-ays on theoretically feasible if not alvays reasonable solutions to real Ivorld problems For Brand and his colleagues Stop thei-Gallon Flush a guide to stopping water ~vaste with simple household tecl~nological fixes was just as revolutionan a book as Das Kapitalql Brands practical revolution appealed to the gro~ving numbers of disenchanted New Left radicals ~ v h o tired of sitting in coffee houses endlessly debating politics but vho still vanted to somehow subvert the syste~n The publishers of KEC inadvertently advanced the radical notion that by staying home from the protest demoilstration and modifying your toilet building a geodesic dome or a solar collector jou could make a Inore immediate and significant contribution to the effort to create an alternative future than through more conventional expressive politics

In contrast to the downbeat rhetoric of the late 1960s campus-based New Left Brand and his enthusiastic collaborators remained optimistic about a coming revolution brought about by appropriate technoloa Dran~ing on the optimism of utopian post-scarcity visions of the future Brand and other alternative techno lo^ proponents Lvere representative of a new direction ~vithin the counterculture characterized by intellectual curiosity and a love for creative technical innovation Inspired by the ~1oi-kof Bucknlinster Fuller Brand expanded the outlan area of counterculture innovation atvay from music production and psychedelic drug research totvard areas such as alternative energy and i~lfor~nation Brand vas hardly a pragma- technologp tist he was a dreamer ~ E Cbegan with the working assunlption that large numbers of 14~nericansrvere willing to abandon their current lives and move into self-sustaining ecologically friendly communities The first issues of the catalog were aimed at those who were working to use the best of small-scale technology to literally disco~l~lect themselves from the infrastructures of mainstream society and relocate to rural or ~vilder~less promoted radically detached self-sufficiency as the ke areas 4t first ~Ec to a viable revolutionary politics


No one better captured the optimistic spirit of appropriate technology as pre- sented in the pages of ~ J E Cthan the iconoclastic self-taught designer and Harvard dropout Buckminster Fuller Born in 1895 Fuller alas venerated by the i97os but still full of radical ideas and an inspiration to a younger generation43 For more than four decades he had been on a personal quest to create a completely new way ofviewing design construction and the environment Fuller wanted to reform the human environme~lt by developing tools that deal more effectively and economically with evolutionarq change^ Although a prolific designer Fuller is best kno~zn for the concept ofd~~n~axion design Fuller defined dymaxion as doing the most with the least+j His geodesic donie epitomized the ideal of appropriate technology using the most sophisticated design principles and the latest technologies to make more with less He was an acute observer of the natural world Unlike most of his contem- poraries especially in the ig3os Fuller saw the universe in terms of interconnected triangles and spheres instead of straight lines and boxes The ultimate example of his design ideal +as the brilliant and elegantly simple geodesic dome The domes con- sisted ofa series of linked triangles forming a sphere that proved to be so strong that it could be built with very lightweight materials and remain structurally sou~ld in virtually any size

The geodesic dome was based on cornplex n~athen~atics and design principles and at the same time a structure so uncomplicated that almost anyone could build one from materials at hand The geodesic dome became the preferred do~iiicile for counterculture communes like Colorados Drop City because the dornes were cheap easy to build often portable and environmentally friendly4~ullers artful designs epitomized the post-scarcity ideal of appropriate technologies as the basis for alternative communities and alternative societies At IEC Brand published information on Fuller Paolo Soleri TVIoshe Safdie and other designers and architects who utilized -design and technical innovation to create alter~iative realities+

In the early years u ~ carticulated an appealing vision for those looking for a permanent retreat from the status quo Individuals who planned their escape through the pages of LWC discovered a program of action where choices about the right technology booth useful old gadgets and ingenious new tools are crucial but choices about political matters are notts For appropriate technology enthusiasts lifestyle became the primary form of political expression In MEC Brand assenlbled an almost mind-boggling array of informati011 on tools science products services and publications ranging from the mundane to the downright weird but all somehow concer~ied with crafting alternative lifestyles that subverted traditional networks of political spiritual and physical energy For those who encountered NEC the experience uas often a revelation According to Gereth B r a n ~ ~ n subsequently a staff writer for W r e d hfagazineI got my first Whole Earth Catalog in 1971 It was the same day I scored my first bag of pot I went over to a friends house to smoke a joint he pulled out this unwieldy catalog his brother had brought home from college I was instantly enthralled Id never seen anything like it We lived in a small redneck town in Virginia-people didnt think about such things as whole systems and nomadics and Zen Buddhism I traded my friend the pot for the catalog49 At a time when the New Left move~nent was dissipating u ~ ~ c a n d provided hope that the AT~novenient an alternative environmental and political future aras still possible

- -


Not all counterculturalists environmentalists or appropriate technology advocates agreed with the radical self-sufficie~lcy message of NEC in the early years The first w~cappealed to the dropout school of hippies and back-to-the-landers who took their political cues from the likes of Ken Kesey who encouraged them to Just turn your back and say Fuck It and walk away5 Years later Brand realized that MECS

uncritical enthusiasm for self-sufficiency and dropout politics in those early years may have caused harm In Soh Tech he wrote with some regret Anyone who has actually tried to live in total self-sufficiency knows the mind-numbing labor and loneliness and frustration and real marginless hazard that goes with the attempt It is a kind of hysteria^ Despite Brands concerns about an overemphasis on self-sufficiency and escapism most readers of the MECnever took the message literally The vast majority of the almost two million people tvho purchased copies of IVECin its first three years never left the ci$s never abandoned society for a lonely exile The message that most readers got from UEC was unbridled technological optimism the idea that innovation and invention lvith a conscience could overcome even the worst social and environrne~ltal problems It was this message so profou~ldly different from the technophobia expressed by environmentalists and critics like Theodore Roszak that made I I E C S U C ~a significant phenomenon Brand and other proponents ofthe xr movement understood something about technocracys children that Roszak did not the youth culture of the 1960s and 1970s ivas in the words of appropriate tech e~lthusiastand chronicler Witold Rybczynski immensely attracted to technologyj2

From the beginning w c a n d the xr rnoveme~ltas a whole directed that attraction i11 tu0 distinct directions the outlaw edges of alternative energy technology and information and comm~inications technology Over the years readers of the catalog could find careful descriptions of the Vermont Castings Defiant wood stove closel) followed by the latest information on Apple computers This incongruous juxtaposi- tion made perfect sense to Brand The Vermo~lt Castings tool manipulated heat the Apple tool manipulated information Both cost a few hundred dollars both were made by and for revolutionaries who wanted to de-institutionalize society and ern- power the individual both embodied clever design ideas all characteristics of appropriate technology According to Brand the ability to manipulate energy and illformation were necessaq to change the syste1n~3 The only way one could hope to cast off the chains of the industrial world was to steal the keys to the kingdom Acquiri~lgthe knowledge to manipulate energy in particular was viewed by supporters of appropriate technology and a growing faction of the environ~nental movemeilt as a crucial step in freeing oneself from existing structures of oppression and environmental degradation and enabling self-sufficiency

With this broadened agenda in ~n ind the energy focus at Whole Earth and then CoEvolr~tioriQuarterl~shifted from low-tech basic tools the wood stove or indi- vidually crafted hand saws to much more sophisticated alternative energy solutions such as solar geothermal biogas and biofuels and high-tech wind harnessing devices such as the ever popular Gemini Synchronous Inverter Brand and crew drew inspiration from groups like The New Alchemists who were pushing the edges of appropriate technology and putting the latest alternative energy technologies into active use in their laboratories on Prince Edward Island and Cape Cod54 Other organizations explored appropriate technology from a variety of perspectives They researched new


household tech~lologies such as conlposting toilets affordable greenhouses and organic gardening techniques along with alternative energy technologies While the research of individuals and organizations working in the area o f m varied greatly all involved shared the common goal of using technical research to enable simpler more ecologically sensitive lives and econonlies of a human scale

The concentration on alternative renewable ene ra at WEC the New Alche~ny Institute and other organizations reflected a larger shift in direction in the American environmental movement as a whole The energy crisis of the early 1970s brought a realization on the part of environmentalists that Inany of the ecological problerns of the postwar era were either directly or indirectly linked to the acquisition and distribution of energy Long lines at gas stations and soaring fuel prices brought horne the reality of finite energy resources This renewed realization that scarcity was once again a real and long-term problem forced courlterculture environmentalists to re- evaluate the aspects of their technological enthusiasm derived from 1960s Nev Left notions of a post-scarcity world

By the 1nid-i970s it was clear that post-scarcity was a long way off The move away from post-scarcity politics toward an appropriate technology philosophy that recognized scarcity and reformulated utopian radicalism paved the way for AT to move into the mainstream The energy crisis of the 1970s forced millions ofAmericans to reevalu- ate their environmental positions and helped the environmental movement clramati- cally expand its base Environmental organizations working in the area of Yr were poised to provide a new vision of environme~ltal activism to this broadened audience ofconcerned Americans The community of i~ldividuals and organizations working on alternative energy solutions became particularly influential during the 1970s

All of the new and renewed energy technologies featured in the pages of IWC

became compo~lents of what British physicist Amory Lovins referred to as the soft path Lovins popularized the soft path to energy solutions in a widely read and highly controversial 1976 article in the prestigious journal Foreig1lMairs5 For Lovirls and his supporters the soft path was the moral alternative to an American federal policy [that] relies on rapid expansion of centralized high technologies to increase supplies of energyj~llstead of increasing centralization soft path proponents sup-ported decentralized appropriate technologies and urged western nations specifi- cally the United States to direct their research toward renewable alternatives and explore the possibility of shrinking the system to provide a more equitable relationship with developing nations Appropriate soft technologies such as passive solar the use of new technologies combined with traditional building materials to heat buildings with energy from the sun were available irnniediately to all who were interested Lovins emphasized that the benefits of soft tech were accessible for regular citizens of the western world and easily transferable to developing nations as well Si~nple pas-sive solar techniques like painting a south-facing wall black and covering it with glass could radically decrease the dependence on large energy systems5 Soft path proponents pointed to several significant energy technologies with long and productive histories that fit perfectly with the ideal of easily accessible renewable energy for a rnodern world Most of the soft path solutions to modern energy problems were retooled versions of preexisting technologies None of these older technologies better captures the spirit of the soft path energy n~oven~en t than the venerable windnlill


The use ofwind as a source ofpower began when humans first harnessed the wind -to power ships and soon after as an efficient means for the mechanization of food production and irrigation For thousands ofyears cultures all over the globe relied on wind power to mill their grains drain their lowlands draw water from aquifers and saw their lumberrq In America the windmill became an emblem of self-sufficiency as farmers and ranchers moved onto the arid plains and niastered the technology of the windmill in order to suwive far from established services and energy sources Americans quickly discovered that windmills could be fabricated out of a vide variety of locally available materials and constructed cheaply from mail order plans As early as 1885 windmills generated electrical power Early researchers lear~ied that windmills were an excellent source of electrical power on a small scale and even small ~vindmills could easily provide enough electricity for a home or small business Preexisting windmills could be retrofitted with electrical generators and provide polver to a remote farm or mill while retaining the capacity to pump water or grind wheat5~ While many adopted the windmill as a permanent source of power wind e n e r g never became the standard that Inany thought possible Wind power faded from view for most of the tiventietli ce~itury

The energy crisis of the 1970s renewed the interest in wind energy One of the reasons that wind never went mainstream vas because of an inability to regulate the wind The power from ~vind generators ebbed and flowed and the fickle winds never maintained a schedule This made wind a poor substitute for hydroelectric or coal turbines which could sustain a constant and manageable flow of energy for large systems and power grids Soft path supporters were unconcer~led about the proble~ils of ivind power for large ssteins O n the contrary they sought sources of power that Lvere better suited to small systems

Like E F Schumacher~ovins and other soft tech proponents believed that the ability to construct small-scale self-sufficient systems provided individuals and communities with a closer connection to the earth and a greater degree of control over their lites The ivindmill was the type oftech~lology that could enable one to use the latest research in electric power generators and new materials such as fiberglass to build ~nachines that produced no pollutants and provided essentially free and limit- less energy For soft path proponents the potential ofthe uindmill was both practical and political Disconnecting yourself from the power grid was the first step toivard a cleaner environme~lt and a move toward reevaluating all of the large systems that dominated the economy and daily life of developed nations The key to the politics behind soft path and -rscience was the notion that real change came not from protest but from constructing viable alternatives to the status quo starting with the basic elements of human life food energ and shelter Lovinss credentials as a profession- ally trained scientist lent credibility to the ~ i rmovement and caused both opponents and supporters to articulate carefully their energy positions Brand approved not only of Lovins ideas but his terminology as well Soft signifies that something is alive resilient adaptive Brand mused maybe even 10vable~ By the mid-qos soft path energy research into solar power wind geothermal heat biogas conversion and recycled fuels moved to the forefront of the environmental and ~ r movements

At the same time that a growing il~imber of environmentalists explored different paths toward decentralization through renewable energy development others worked


in the second area of the outlaw edge information technoloo (IT) For Brand alternative energy was important but 11was where the real action was As he later expressed it ~nforniation iechnology is a self-accelerating fine-grained global industry that sprints ahead of laws and diffuses beyond them61Brand was intrigued by what he Ealled the subversive possibilities of technologies as diverse as recording devices desktop publishing individual telecommu~lications and especially personal con~putersHe joined a growing group of counterculturalists who had a deep respect for innovators like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who were designing and then using their computers to push what Brand referred to as the edges of the possible and per~nissible~Like Lovins and the soft path proponents alternative information technology was viewed perhaps some~vhat naively by people like Steve Jobs and Stewart Brand as a Ineans of personal empowerment The mandate at Apple was to build the coolest niachine you could imagine something so different that people would rethink the role ofthe machine in modern lifeh The naming of the products suggested that these ~nachines were somehow more natural than earlier computers Old computers were identified by acronyms and numbers new computers were named Apple and were accessed through the mouse This was friendly technology designed to be unthreatening and easy to use The specifics of how information and con~mu~licationstechnology could become Lveapons in the war against the status quo uere never clearly articulated by IT proponents Optimistic counterculturalists held a general sense that the personal computer and other neu technologies Lvere intrinsically radical and could change the world simply by existing The details could be worked out later In the meantime their contagious enthusiasm and inventive genius inspired a technological revolution that ultimately tra~lsformed the hnierican economy in unanticipated ways and created ideological paradoxes for the I- pio-neers who helped spawn that reolution

For many in the counterculture ofthe early 1960s computers had represented the epitome ofall that was wrong with technology in the service oftechnocracy During that era computers were giant humming machines that gtere immensely expensive and required a high level of technical expertise to operate They were the heartless mechanized brains of oppression used by IBM and the Pentago11 to design weapons of destruction and quantifi the body counts in Vietnam Neo-Luddites dismissed the computer as a malevolent ~nachine of centralization and dehumanization Critics argued that computers were nothing more than low-grade mechanical cou~lterfeits of the human mind devices propagated by the most morally questionable ele- rnents of socieb+ Many of the first purchasers of ~ v ~ c w o u l d have agreed with these critiques They had a hard time conceiving a role for computers in their utopian back- to-nature communes But other counterculturalists including Brand quickly recognized the potential of the new wave of microcomputers and personal information technology to link individuals and organizations to transform American socieo The u~idespread disseminatio~i of information was essential to the project of constr~icting alter~latives and transforming society Long before most Brand and others involved in the IT movement realized that computers had the potential to help build a new cyber-cornmunit) What these pioneers wondered could be more alternative than an electronic utopia an alternative universe where individuals separated by huge distances could share ideas images and thoughts with thousands of other like-minded


people all over the world AT enthusiasts were some of the first Americans to go on- line and the Whole Earfh LectronicL i n k ( N ~ ~ ~ )became one of the early attempts to create a virtual ~ommuni t~ ~s successor CoEvolution Quar- By the mid-i97os IWCS

terly was dedicating more space to information technology than any other subject They were no longer alone

Conclusion

Before the end of the i97os organizations like the Whole Earth Catalog and The New Alchemy Institute brought together some of the most innovative members of the counterculture to attempt to reconcile nature and the machine For Stewart Brand and other appropriate technology enthusiasts the research they promoted ill both alternative energy and alternative information systems succeeded in substan- tially altering the way Americans thought about the power of technology as a benevo- lent force for environmental protection ecological living and personal liberation In many ways the reconciliation of ecology and technology popularized by N E C pro-vided a more integrated and realistic model for environmentalism By demonstrating-that there were possibilities for a middle ground between nioderil technoloa and environmental consciousness the ATmovement contributed to the acceptance of e~lvironmentalismin mainstrealll Anierican culture

Despite this success the AT movement +as not without its ironic consequences The liberal idealism that drove AToften failed to account for the degree to Lvhich even small-scale and individualistic ideas such as the personal computer could vev rapidly be incorporated into and even strengthen the ven systems they were designed to subvert In 1980 Alvin Toffler published his hugely popular book The Third Wave which argued that the world was on the brink of a third industrial r e ~ o l u t i o n ~ ~ According to Toffler this third revolution would grow out of the transformation of information technologies and would have profound consequences for industry and socieb In many nays Tofflers vision was remarkably accurate Information technologies have reshaped the American economy and socieb at an incredible pace One of the most disturbing consequences of the counterculture environmental tech- nolorn movement is that it helped launch this revolution and the new industrial - giants it spawned The young counterculture or counterculture inspired entrepre- neurs who started their careers pushing the outlav edges of the possible and permis- sible are now billionaires who run major corporations such as Apple Intel and Microsoft that dominate the American economy Many of the radicals of yesterday have become the capitalist elite of today

We live now in an age of technological systems of a level of complexity that makes the once threatening technological structures of the 1960s look antiquated and benign One of the central notions of the 4 ~movement was the belief that access to innovative information and energy technologies was a vital part of changing cultural perceptions and social conditions that contributed to environmental decay Today the outlaw edge of technology that inspired the counterculture is more often occu- pied by new industrial giants such as Intel Corporations whose factories drain millions of gallons ofwater a day out of ancient desert aquifers to wash the silicon chips


that power personal computers with little concern for the effect on the environment and high-powered stafflawyers to fight off grassroots environmentalists who protest6 Examples like this lend credence to declensionist readings of the counterculture and environmentalism after the landmark victories of the 1960s But the relationship betueen counterculture environmentalists and technology was always arnbivale~lt It should come as 110surprise that the legacy of their technological revolution is also anibivale~lt

While the AT revolution may not have played out the yay New Left theorists expected the majorit of the 31 initiatives have had a11 overwhel~ningl j~ positive impact on American culture and American environmentalism and offer a suggestion for hov to move enviro~l~llerltalisn~ out of the cvilderness T h e pronlotion of rene~v- able e n e r a resources and energ consenration through technological invention provides one exarnple of success Energy-efficient houses thermal Lvindows solar power and high-efficiency electrical devices have become ~videly accepted standard features ofAnlerican culture Curbside recycling and the proliferation ofpost-consunler uaste recycling ha1e also gained approval and beco~lle a part of daily life Many of these technologies and services that seei-11 so obvious and sensible that they go unno- ticed today resulted from the radical innovation of counterculture environmentalists Whether they went back to the land or into the laboratory they infused e~ivironmentalisinlvith a n optimistic hope that one day the nagging question of how to reconcile the tension behveen the moderrlist desire to exploit the progressi1e potential of technological innoation with the a~ltimodernist desire to presenre the natural world might be resolved through politicall enlightened technical innovation

Andrew Kirkis an assistantprofessor and the director of the Public Histon Program and teaches corirses in rvestern and enr~ironinental histonat Universig ofNerada Ias Vegas His publications include Collecting Nature T h e American Environmen- tal Movement and the Co~lsenation Libran (lJniversiPress ofGnsas forthconling)

Notes

1 In this essay I use the term antimodernis~n to group individuals and organizations who defined themselves in opposition to the prevailing t w e n t i e t h - c e ~ t belief in progress through tech~lological innovation 4ntimodernists in the conservation and presemation movements rarely rejected the modernistiProgressive ideal that societies are improvable they sirnply rejected the notion that irnprol-ement required looking forlvard to new technologies to solve old problems

2 hlichael hIcClosky Wilderness Moveme~~t at the Crossroads 1945-1970 Pacific His- torical Review41 (k~gus t 1972) 346-61 Samuel P Hays From Consemation to Enviro11- ment Environmental Politics Since World War T~vo Environmer~tal Revier+ 6 (fall 1982) 14-41 Mark W T Han-ey Echo Park Glen Canyon and the Poskvar Wilderness Movement Pacific Historical Review60 ( F e b r u a ~ 1991) 43-67

j The Whole Earth Cataloghas had Inany incarnations ~ e c a u s e of the editors icolloclastic style and alternative publishirlg n~ethodoloa IVhole Earth is maddeningly difficult to properly cite The first addition uas published in 1968 as The Whole Earth Catalog Access 7b Tools edited by Stewart Brand and published by the Portola I~lstitute vith


distribution provided by Random House Several revised versions folloved between 1969 and 1971 all with Brand as the lead editor when The Last Whole Earth Catalog (Portola amp Random House 1971) appeared The Last Whole Earth Lvon the prestigious National Book A~vard in 1972 411 of the LVhole Earths were reprinted many times and often there were seasonal editions Betwee11 1972 and 1999 there were several notable editions See especially Stewart Brand ed The hrext Whole Earth Cata1ogAccess to Tools (The Pont Foundatio~~with distribution by Rand hlcNallv in the US and Random House in Canada 1980) This partic~~lar edition is notable for shear size 608 oversized pages and breadth of coverage There were also several $hole Earth-type companion ~olumes such as J Baldvin and Stewart Brand eds Soft-Tech (New York Penguin Books 1978) that focused on particular issues Brand relinquished the editorship in the 1980s and several editors have since shepherded the perennially popular publication through several more editions hlost notable among these are Ho-ard Rheingold ed The i Z f i l l e ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ i l ~ ~ ~ ~ hole Earth Catalog (San Francisco Calif Harper San Francisco ~gqq) and Peter irarshall ed 30th Anniversav Celebration 1Ihole Earth Catalog (San Rafael Calif Point Foundation 1999) The thirtieth-anniversq edition includes a wonderful collection of Alternative Technology and Counterculture essa)s b leaders from the 1960s- 1990s Kevin Kelly ed Signal Corr~nlunication Tools for the Information Age A W11ole Egrth Catalog (New York Harmony Books 1988)

4 Arthur Carhart is the exarnple I know best Universally considered a leading activist in the 1940s and 19 jos he has been dismissed b- enironmental historia~ls primarily because his wilderness philosophy a-as not pure enough For a recent corrective to these tendencies see Charles T Rubin Consenatior~Reconsidered ~ Gt~lre a~ldArrlericar~Mrh~e Liberal Den~ocracr~[Lanhamhld Ronman amp Littlefield Publishers 2000) This excellent collection of essays takes on the tendencies of historians to depict consenation presenation and environmentalism1 as oppositional ~novements Particularly useful is Bob Pepperrnan Taylors Aftenlord

5 Yilliam Cronon ed U~lcon~rnor~ Toward Reinr~enting Nature (Nev York I Gror~nd iJ Norton amp Company 1995) 69 For a remarkably similar argument against elevating a mythically pristine M-ilderness at the expense of the rest of the environment see Arthur Carhart PlanningforA~~~ericasIVildlands (Harrisburg Pa The Telegraph Press 1961) Carhart has often been criticized for his failure to support the Wilder~iess Bill at a time vhen his influence and access to a national audience n7as at a high point Carhart argues convi~lcingl that wilderness as defined by the Wilderness Society did not really exist in any pure state but it u-as an experience a construct that lived I-ithin vour mind rather than in a particular place carhart refused to support the Vilderness Bill in 1964 because he felt that arguing for ~llderness purlamp mould be a de facto concession to those I10

sought to de elop lands not cons~dered pr~stine 6 T h ~ s dnd the u ~ c o e s sect~on on counterculture en~ironmental~sm a great dedl to an

essay I wrote for an edited collection on the cou~iterculture Machi~ies of Loving Grace Appropriate Technology E~lviron~nent and the Counterculture in Imagine iVatio11 The A~nerican Cocintercultr~re o f the 1960s 2nd 197os ed hlichael Doyle and Peter Braunstein (Neu York Routledge forthcoming)

j Murray Bookchin Post-Scarci~Anarcl~is~~~(Berkeley Calif The Ramparts Press 1971) 8 Ibid 12

9 Ibid 11

lo Steven Ley Hackers Heroes ofthe Co~l~puter R e u t i o n (New York Penguin Books 1994) 11 The classic study of the consenation n~oven~ent is Samuel P Hays Consemation and the

Gospel o f Eficiencr The Progressive Consenation Morre~ne~~t 189~1920(Cambridge


Mass Harvard University Press 1959) Also useful is Stephen Fox The American Consena- tion Movement John h4uirand His Legacy (Madison University of Wisconsin Press 1981)

12 For an excellent overview of the effect of atornic technology on American culture see Paul Bo)er By the Bombs Early Light An~erican Thought and Ccrlture at the Darvn of the Atomic Age (New York Pantheon Books 1985)

13John Eastlick Proposed Collection of Conservation of Natural Resources FF-51 box 4 Consenation Library Collection archive

qFox Tlie American Consen~ation ~Lfovement Fox highlights bluirs antimodernist rhetoric as evidence that the consetvation movement had from the beginning hvo distinct strains of thought one progressive and modern focused on efficiency and reform and the other antirnodernist focused on the aesthetic and spiritual values of ~vilderness A further discus- sion of these ideas can be found in Max Oelschlaeger The Idea of lWderness From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology (New Haven Conn Yale University Press 1991)

15 Oelschlaeger The Idea of Wilderness 2

16 Rachel Carson Silent Spring (Greenwich Conn Fawcett Publications 1962) 1 Barn Con~moner The Closing Circle Nature V11n and Technolo53(Neu York Alfred

A Knopf 1971) 18 Jacques Ellul The Technological Society trans Joachim Neugroschel (New York

Continuum 1980) first published in French in 1954 and inEnglish in 1964 Quote is frorn Thomas P Hughes A~riericarj Genesis A Centun of invention and Tech~~ological Enthusiasni (New York Penguin Books 1989) 450

19 Quote is from 1angdon Winner Building a Better hlo~~setrap Appropriate Technolog) as a Social Mo~ement in Appropriate T e c h n o l o ~ a ~ ~ d Social k1uesA Criticali4ppraisal ed Franklin 4 Long and Alexandra Oleson (Cambridge Mass Ballinger Publishing Company 19801 jj

20 Herbert Marcuse One Dirnensional12lan Studies in the I d e o l o ~ ofAdrancedlndustria1 Sociek (Boston Beacon Press 1964)

21 Hughes Arnerican Genesis 445 22 Lebvis Mumford Technics and Cirilization (New York Harcourt Brace amp World 1963) 23 Hughes Ari~ericar~ Genesis 46-50 Lewis hlumford The iWvth of the Machine Tlie

Pentagon of Power ihecv York Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1970) qFor an in-depth look at the machine in Arnerican culture see Leo hIarx T l ~ e Machine

a r ~ d the Garden Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in Arr~erica (New York Oxford University Press 1964) This classic study remains the best source on the strange relationship between technology and nature in American culture See also Richard White The Organic 121achine (New York Hill amp Lflang 1995)

25 Theodore Roszak The Making ofthe Counter C~rlt~lre Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Yo~1th611 Oppositio~i (New York Doubleday amp Company 1968)

26 Ibid 8 27 Charles A Reich The Greening ofAmerica Hou- the Youth Revolution is T ~ i n g to

Make America Livable (New York Random House 1970) 28 E F Schumacher Small Is Beautiful Economics as if People hhttered (New York

Harper 8 Row 1973) 29 Ibid i q jo A useful taxonomy of technologies can be foulid in Marilyn Carr ed The AT Reader

Theoy and Practice in Appropriate Technologv (New York Intermediate Tech~iolog) Developnient Group of North America 1985) 6-11

ji Witold Rybczynski Paper Heroes A Review ofiippropriate techno lo^ (Garden City NY Anchor Books 1980) 1-4


32 David Dickson Alternative Technology and the Politics of Technical Change (Glasgo~v FontanaiCollins i974) 48-73

33 Samuel P Hays Beauty Health and Pernlanence Environn~ental Politics in the United States 1955-1985 (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1987) 262

34 Lewis Herber (Murray book chi^^) Our Synthetic Environment (New York Alfred A Knopf 1962) Murray Bookchin Post-Scarcihharchis~n (Berkeley Calif The Ramparts Press 1971) Q ~ ~ o t e is from Post-Scarcih 22 See also Ulrike Heider Anarchism Left Right and Green (San Francisco Calif City Lights Books 1994) and Arthur Lothstein ed Nl We Are Saying The Philosophy of the New Left (Nev York Capricorn Books 1970)

35 Bookchi11 Post-Scarci$A~~archis~n21

36 The best ovenien of the New Left the counterculture and environmentalism can be found in Robert Gottlieb Forcing the Spring The Transformation of the American Environmental VJorement (Washington DCIsland Press iggj) 81-114 See also Mar- tin Lewis Green Delusions4n Enrironmentalist Critique ofRadical En iron~~~ental is~n [Durham NC Duke University Press 1992 For a ven- different point of view from Gottliebs and from that in this essay see Hays Beauh Health and Pernlanence 259-65 Hays argues that there were only superficial similarities between the negative counterculture and the positive enfiron~nental alternative lifestyle movement

37 See Robert D Bullard Dunlping in Diuie Race Class and Environmental Quali$ (Boulder Colo Weshiew Press iqgo) and Confrontirig E n r i r o ~ ~ m e ~ ~ t a l Racism bites from the Grassroots (Boston South End Press 1993)

38 Carr ed The reader 9 There are many fine sources on the development of appropriate tech~lolog see David Dickson illternative Techno1ogr- and the Politics of Technical Change (New York U~liverse Books 1975) Nicholas Jequier ed Appropriate Technolog Problems and Prornises (Paris Organization for Economic Cooperation and Develop- ment 1976) Franklin Long amp Alexandra Oleson eds Appropriate Technolop and Social ValuesL$itold Rybczynski Enling the Tiger The Struggle to Control Technology (New York Penguin 1985) hlathe~v J Betz Pat McGowan and Rolf T Wigand eds Appropriate Technolo~ Choice and De~elopment (Durham NC Duke Press Policy Studies 1984) Ron Westrum Technologies and Socieh The Shaping of People and Things (Belrnont Calif Wadsworth Publishi~lg 1991) and Theodore Roszak Where the IVkteland Ends Politics and Transcendence in Postindush-ial Socieh (Garden City NY Anchor Books 1973) Tvo recent ivorks shed new light on the history of alternative technology within the contest of environmental politics Martin W Lewis Green Delusions An Enrironn~entalistCritique ofRadical E~~r-ironrneritalism (Durham NC Duke Universip Press 1992) and Charles T Rubin ed Conservation Reconsidered bture Vim~e and American Liberal De~nocracj- (Lanham hld Ro~vnian amp Littlefield Publishers 2000)

39 Winner Buildi~lg a Better Mousetrap 31 40 Stewart Brand The Media Lab Inventing the Future at117(New York Penguin Books

1988) How Buildings Learn What Happens M e r Theyre Built (New York Penguin Books 1994) The Clock of the Long ~Vou Tirrle a ~ l d Responsibilih (New York Basic Books 1999)

41 Witold Rybczynski Stop the 5-Gallon Flush (Montreal Minimum Cost Housing Group

1975) 42 Kevin Kelly ed Signal Cornn~r~riicatioris Tools for the Information Age A N7hole Earth

Catalog (New York Harmony Books 1988) 3 43 R Buckminster Fuller and Robert Marks The Dyrnaxion World of B~lcknlinster F~lller

(Garden City NY Anchor Books 1973) Robert Marks ed Buckminster Fuller Ideasand Integrities (Englevood Cliffs NJ Prentice-Hall 1963) Robert Snyder ed Buckminster Fuller Autobiographical 12lo11olog~1eScenario (New York St Martins Press 1980)


it4 Snyder Bucklninster Fuller 38 4 5 Ibid 54-55 46 Clark Secrest No Right to be Poor Colorados Drop City Colorado Heritage (winter

1998) 14-21 47 Paolo Soleris vision of an alternative world created through revolutionary architecture

was even more iconoclastic than Fullers Soleris radical design ideas were popularized in Arcolo~ The Ciampin the Image ofL21an (Cambridge Mass h111 Press 1969) and epitomized by his still unfinished life project Arcosanti in the Arizona desert Like Soleri Moshe Safdie focused on alternative designs for corn~uunal living See Moshe Safdie Bejorid Habitat(Cambridge Mass 1111 Press 1go)

48 Winner Building a Better Mousetrap 32 49 Gareth Branuyn Whole Earth Reiev Streettech website http~wstreettechconi

bcpBCPgrafiCyberCult~~re~holeEarthReviehtml(6iz6ioi) jo Tom Wolfe The Electric Kool-AidAcid Test(New York Bantam Books 1997) 191-200 51 Baldwin and Brand Soft Tech 5 52 Rybczynski Paper Heroes 94 53 Kelly Signal 3 54 Todd The New Alchemists Soft Tech 149-65 55 Amor) Lovins Enerp Strateg) The Road Not Taken ForeignMairs 55 (October 1976)

65-96 Hugh Nash ed The Er~ergy Cor~tror~ersj Soft Path Questions and Answers (San Francisco Calif Friends of the Earth 1979) Jim Harding ed Tools for the Soft Pat11 (San Francisco Calif Friends of the Earth 1979)

56 Lo-ins Energy Strateg 6j 57 Ibid 82-83 58 T Lindsay Baker 4 Field Guide to An~ericar~ Wir~dnlills (Norman Universip of Okla-

homa Press 1985) Paul Cipe Wind en erg^ Conies of Age (New York Wile 1995) Robert W Righter Wind Erlergv in America A Histo (Norman University of Okla- horna Press 1996) David Rittenhouse Inglis Ili~d Power and Other E11erg Optior~s (Ann Arbor IJniversity of Michigan Press 1978 Michael Hackleman The Hornebuilt M7ind-Generated Electricib Handbook (Culver Cib Calif Peace Press 1975) Richard L Hills Porrer From Wind A Histoy of Itindrnill Technolog(Carnbridge Cambridge Universib Press 1994) See also Nicholas P Chermisnoff Fundamentals of f i d En- ergy (Ann Arbor Mich Ann Arbor Science 1978) Douglas R Coonley Wind llakil~g It Work For You (Philadelphia The Franklin Institute Press 1979)

59 Hills Pouer Fro111 Wind 265-81 60 Baldwin and Brand Soft Tech 5 61 Kelly Signal 3 62 Ibid For Illore on Jobs Wozniak and Apple see Steven Ley Insanely Great The Life

2nd Tirrles ofi2lacintosl1 The Computer That Changed Eveything(NewYork Penguin Books 1995) Steven Levy Hackers Heroes of the Computer Revolution (New York Penguin Books 1994) and Jeff Goodell The Rise and Fall of Apple Inc Rolling Stone (April 419963 51-73 and (April 181996) 59-88

63 Goodell The Rise and Fall ofApple Inc 52

64 Theodore Roszak The Cult of Information A Neo-Luddite Treatise on High-Tech Artificial Intelligence and the True Art of Thinking (Berkeley Universib of California Press lggq) xiii-xv

65 See the YELLwebsite httpl~~~~vvellcon~(62601) 66 Alvin ToMer The Third Wave (New York Bantarn Books 1982) 67 Bruce Selcraig LUbuquerque Learns It Really Is A Desert Town High Count Aews

26 (December 26 1994) 1-6

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Appropriating Technology The Whole Earth Catalog and Counterculture EnvironmentalPoliticsAndrew KirkEnvironmental History Vol 6 No 3 (Jul 2001) pp 374-394Stable URL


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Notes

2 Echo Park Glen Canyon and the Postwar Wilderness MovementMark W T HarveyThe Pacific Historical Review Vol 60 No 1 (Feb 1991) pp 43-67Stable URL

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Appropriating Technology The Whole Earth Catalog and Counterculture

Environmental Politics

Andrew Kirk

We are as gods and might as well get good at it -Stewart Brand The Whole Earth Catalog 1968

When Stewart Brand issued his clarion call for technological acceptance in the opening lines of the first Whole Earth Catalog the American enviro~ime~ital move-ment was in the middle of significant ideological and political reorientation Until the mid-1960s most environmental advocacy aimed at preseniing American wilderness from industrial development and urban encroachment Enlironmental activists from John Muir to ~ o w a r d ~ a h n i s e r focused the environmental debate on the problems of illdustrial technology and constructed a sharp dichotomy bebveen nahire and human civilization In this ideological tradition wilderness became the ultiluate symbol of environmental purity and abundance ~vith the polluted modern technological city its antithesis This bipolar often antiniodernist frarneivork senred conser- -vation and preservation activists well in early fights to convince the American public of the reality of scarcity and the necessib for presenation of some forestlands and remote natdral treasures This simple didhotom) was less effective when applied to increasingly coniplex environmental and social politics after the mid-1960s

Followi~ig the 1964 passage of the Wilderness Act environmental activism was enmeshed in the social struggles political upheaval and cultural te~lsio~is of the 1960s A new generation of counterculture environmentalists struggled to resolve long-standing tensions between the modernist faith in Progressive reform and the antirrlodernist distrust of tech~~ology and desire to return to a simpler time The success of the wilderness nioveme~lt created an ideological crisis for environmentalists who found it increasingly difficult to define their movement in terms of progress s presenation The spirit of cooperation that united a diverse coalition of environmental advocates behind the banner ofwilderness disintegrated in the years after the passage ofthe Wilderness Act and environmental politics became increasingly corn- plicated and the boundaries of the debate harder to define Almost immediately after the successful passage of the Wilderness Act wilder~iess ceased to be a defining




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